1972 Pierre Cardin AMC Javelin SST: Black Magic

Designer jeans. Must have been the 1970s, an era when you could also score an AMC car with a designer interior. One such package was the Pierre Cardin Javelin, like this 1972 SST model. Lindenhurst, NY is where this one resides, and you’ve got 23 days to make up your mind whether its $22,000 asking price here on ebay suits your budget. There is a button to “make an offer” as well, if you’re inclined to probe for the bottom number this seller will take.

The AMC Javelin just on its own is a cool car, with a Coke-bottle shape and the long hood/short deck proportions first made famous on the Mustang. The car in question has a 390-CID V8 and 66,000 miles on the clock, but probably not original. It is described as an “earlier 390 motor” which has been bored 0.30 thousandths over, with a Crane cam, headers, and nitrous. Nitrous? What was this car used for? The classic street racer, it sounds like. (Actually, the seller says that the car was a 1980s drag car, and the pictures indicate that it was named “Black Magic”.) In any case, it’s had a long hibernation and now gets driven around the neighborhood on Sunday mornings, one presumes to keep it fresh. But the description leaves some doubts—the nitrous hasn’t been hooked up since the engine was built maybe three years ago. You should plan on going through this one again before you head to the strip, if that’s indeed your goal for the car.

But boy, that Cardin package. It was an interior trim accent job that appeared on just over 4,000 cars, built in 1972 & 1973. Multi-colored stripes (red, plum, white, and silver) flashed over a black background, running across the seats, up the doors, onto the headliner, and down to the rear seats. Just so nobody mistook this for anything else, a Cardin crest was placed on the front fenders. Was it attractive? Well, it was a standout, let’s just say, and now, it’s rare, adding just a little touch of something different to your Javelin, if you happen to have it installed. The condition on the interior of this car is slightly off concours, apparently, with the seller noting that the interior is a little faded and has some staining.

The body also needs what the seller is calling out as a full restoration. That’s because the rear quarters have bubbles of rust, and the front fender on the one side has a bondo crack. In other words, you’re not just restoring, you’re first undoing someone else’s cheapo resto. There’s also bubbling under the vinyl roof. All of this probably has something to do with a prior owner having pulled the car out of a barn in Maine. The indication is that the car could be seen as a kind of post-apocalypse war wagon—a Mad Max machine is mentioned—but how long are you going to be happy with that? And how long can severe rust damage go untreated? This adds up to a lot of work and expense, with the Cardin package only partly mitigating that by adding some value to the car. How much? That’s for you to decide before you hit that offer button.